Double anniversary on the Red Bull Ring

After the Brno GP, the MotoGP Circus travelled directly to the Red Bull Ring. This weekend the Austrian Grand Prix will take place there, which marks not only the 100th race of the Dynavolt Intact GP team, but also the 150th Grand Prix start of Marcel Schrötter.

The Moto2 team from Memmingen of course hopes that these two anniversaries are not the only occasions to celebrate this weekend in Styria.

The Dynavolt Intact GP riders Xavi Vierge and Marcel Schrötter arrive as Championship seventh and eighth on the Red Bull Ring. Only eight points separate the two team mates from each other.

Xavi Vierge secured fifth place in Brno last week after fighting for the podium in the leading group. The 2018 season is still nine races long and the 21-year-old is following only 23 points behind the Moto2 World Championship top 3. In Austria, the Spaniard wants to be in the leading group again and is aiming to fight for a second podium of the year after Argentina.

Marcel Schrötter returns to the track, where he led a race for the first time in 2016 and at that time achieved his best Moto2 result with fifth place. Unfortunately, in 2017 he missed the race due to a scaphoid injury. This year, in Spielberg, the 25-year-old is tackling his 150th Grand Prix. Perhaps a good omen, hopefully to finally reach the first podium, after he was often close to it.Title Photo: On Wednesday, the Kalex rider made a visit in Graz as part of the pre-event, where he and his rider colleagues Jack Miller, Danilo Petrucci, Takaaki Nakagami and Phillip Öttl were going to the main square with the Red Bull Tram.

The 4.3-kilometre-long Red Bull Ring lies in the picturesque, green mountain landscape of Austrian Styria. The track offers an altitude difference of 65 meters as well as 7 right and only 3 left turns.

After the Sachsenring and Brno, where there are always many Germans, Austria now feels like the third home race in a row. I couldn't ride here last year, so I'm even more looking forward to this weekend. In Spielberg, acceleration is the main factor due to the long straights. At the same time you have many, long braking phases, where you can often lose a lot of time. It is a combination of good braking and acceleration from the narrow corners in first gear. I get along well in Spielberg and find the track quite cool. The podium would be fantastic and it is also our goal, but of course you can't force it. We will do our best, every training, like every weekend, to be there on Sunday as good as possible.

Xavi Vierge

P7 - Moto2 World Championship 2018

In Czech Republic we finished 5th but with 3 seconds very close to the winner. It is very good to have two races in a row, so we can immediately build on the last weekend. We learned a lot from the Brno-GP. We need to start in Spielberg with focusing mainly on my riding style and after to adjust the bike. Many races we tried to find everything on the bike and less on me. But now we agreed to change our way of working in this matter in order to be closer to the top in every race.